Europe Christmas 2009: Day Three at the D’Orsay
December 30, 2009
Today was our second full day in Paris and I have to say, it has been my favorite day so far (Chris’ too).
We learned our lesson about ridiculously priced hotel breakfasts, so we found a little café on our way to the metro for our petite dejeneur (breakfast, you American fool!) Feeling like something fancy for breakfast, I decided to order a “tartine.” Visions of tarts filled with berries and cream filled my mind as I waited for it and my chocolat chaud. Well, turns out “tartine” in France doesn’t really translate to the sort of “tartine” experience I’m used to in the Mission because “tartine” apparently means a piece of baguette. Lesson learned!
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After our less than totally inspiring breakfast (it was fine, just not fancy), we took the metro to the D’Orsay, the second big museum we wanted to hit in Paris.
Long story short: the D’Orsay is brilliant! We both agree that we much much much prefer it to the Louvre. Whereas the Louvre is just overwhelming and full of both art I’m really interested in and art I would rather just skip, the D’Orsay was 99% filled with stuff we loved. From Van Gough to Degas to Monet to Renoir, the D’Orsay is an Impressionist and Post-Impressionist wonderland. And, since the gods apparently favor me most of all, it turns out they were having a special exhibit on Art Nouveau, which is a favorite school of mine – especially where architecture is concerned.
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Interesting tidbit for you – did you know of the close relationship between the Art Nouveau movement and the hippy-dippy psychedelic movement of the 60’s? It seems that the Art Nouveau school sort of split between a naturalist look (which is what I most think of when I think “Art Nouveau”) and a more funky acid-trip look (think the cover of a Jimmy Hendrix album or one of those total 60’s women’s flower-power dresses.) Crazy, hey?!
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So anyway, we spent a good long time at the D’Orsay and it was great. And, unlike out marathon pace at the Louvre, we were smarter and took a nice mid-way break for a snack. (Though I will say their café is less than awesome, it gets the job done.)
After interviewing Chris I can report on our favorite pieces.
Chris’ favorite is between three:
Van Gogh’s self-portrait
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Renior’s “Bal au Moulin de la Galette”
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Monet’s “Essai de figure en plein air dit Femme a l’ombrelle tournee vers la gauche” (which means “a figure in plain air, a woman with an umbrella turned to the left”)
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And my favorites were:
Van Gogh’s self portrait again (the pictures here don’t do it justice, but one cool thing to note is how the swirls of the background are then continued in his clothing. It sort of made me think of those ads for antidepressants where they have the actor’s clothing the same color as the wallpaper. Very interesting…)
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Lucien Levy-Dhurmer’s “Le lac Leman” (though really all his pastels were absolutely fantastic – and it was cooler because I had never heard of him before today!)
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Jozsef Rippl-Ronai’s “Un Parc la nuit” (which, again, was really awesome in that I’d never heard of him before. And I’m partial to pastels myself!)
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And speaking of pastels, after we finished at the D’Orsay and were making our way to Saint Chapelle guess what we stumbled upon! The original Sennelier – founded in the 1800s! Sennelier, for those of you not in the know, is who makes the oil pastels I use to make my own paintings! The sad thing was that the damn place was closed! Hopefully when we go back to Paris in a few days it’ll be opened. I know I can get my oil pastels in California, but to get one or two (or three or ten…) in Paris would be, I think, super special!
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After that we decided to have lunch before heading to Saint Chapelle (it being already 3PM!) After much debate, we settled on a café in the Saint Germain with a nice people watching view. I of course sampled their French onion soup and have to say – ‘twas delicious! The cheese over here is just so friggin good!
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After that we tried to go to Saint Chapelle but, alas, it was closed for the evening (for a concert apparently.) So instead we decided to stroll around the Saint Germain for a while, window browsing and the like. Oh! But before that we had to pleasure of seeing about, oh, 30 police trucks and perhaps 50+ cops in riot gear circling around a group protesting about Palestine. Having not watched the news in awhile, I wasn’t sure if something new happened, but it wasn’t looking good!
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Since I’m decidedly against getting arrested in lovely France, we decided to make our way into the Saint Germain and away from the excitement… though we could hear stuff going on for a fair distance.
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After walking around that area for a while, and I must say you definitely should spend some time there wandering the picturesque alleyways full of shops and bistros, we decided to take the metro to see the Eiffel tower!
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While the tower was beautiful (especially at the hour when it does a little fancy light show) the area around the Eiffel Tower was probably the one area where we didn’t feel particularly comfortable. Basically there are a lot of aggressive vendors trying to sell stupid little trinkets right at the tower and otherwise it’s just very dark and isolated.
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We even walked over to the smallish Christmas market right there and it just seemed more like the after hours of a sketchy carnival than anything else. But either way, we had to see the tower! And we did eat a yummy nutella-filled crepe along the way!
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After that we hopped on the metro and make our way back to the hotel – where we once again drank sauternes and soaked our very tired feet!
And tomorrow we leave dear Paris for the slower life of Strasbourg!
A bientôt!
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Comments
2 Responses to “Europe Christmas 2009: Day Three at the D’Orsay”
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yup, tartine is tartine — they have them in the mission too — open faced bread with cheese and… stuff.
Feel free to ignore the any of my recommendations for Paris. I guess that I don’t know your taste in art — glad that you did the Louvre and d’Orsay in the right order!